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New UMass Medical Campus building wins Best Green Practice Award

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Albert Sherman Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester contains more than cutting-edge research facilities.
The 516,000-square-foot facility also holds numerous sustainable features, making it the greenest building on the Worcester campus. It achieved LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, and has won a design award for the BBJ’s Best Green Practices.
(Artist's rendering courtesy University of Massachusetts Medical School)

WORCESTER — The sleek new terracotta-and-glass Albert Sherman Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School contains more than cutting-edge research facilities.

The 516,000-square-foot facility also holds numerous sustainable features, making it the greenest building on the Worcester campus. It achieved LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, and has won a design award for the BBJ’s Best Green Practices.

“Stewardship of the environment, which is fundamentally linked to global public health, is a core value of the vision set forth by UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael F. Collins,” said John Baker, the school’s associate vice chancellor of facilities management. “Achieving LEED Gold status for the Sherman Center is a reflection of our commitment to these values.”

Such levels of sustainable design and construction came from a team effort, involving the UMass Medical School working closely with ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge and Boston-based Suffolk Construction.

Mark Dolny, associate principal at ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge, said UMass was clear about its green ambitions from the start, which came shortly after a 2007 executive order from Gov. Deval Patrick that ordered green features in state buildings.

“UMass brought to the table an openness and willingness to explore what the possibilities were,” Dolny said. “They were as much a part of this as anyone. Having the owners and users be the drivers takes a lot of pressure off us to try to convince them.”

The $400 million building has numerous green elements. Some 95 percent of the steel used is recycled material, the wood finishes came from certified sustainable forests, and the carpets and textiles contain recycled fibers. Low-flow plumbing fixtures are used in most areas, while rainwater from the roof and condensed water from the heating and cooling systems are reused by the campus power plant, saving 750,000 gallons of freshwater each year.

The façade on the building’s north side, where the labs are located, is mostly glass to allow as much natural light as possible. Windows on the building’s south side are slightly more reflective and have external sun-shades designed to block the sun’s heat energy as well as to bounce light up to the interior ceilings of the building.

Inside, the Sherman Center includes integrated systems — such as occupancy sensors for lighting, heating and cooling of offices and conference rooms — that cut energy consumption to reduce the building’s carbon footprint. The results: The new facility, which officially opened on Jan. 30, operates 25 percent more efficiently, consumes 4.1 million fewer kilowatt hours of electricity, uses 30 percent less water, and has cut carbon dioxide emissions by 4.5 million pounds annually, as compared to similar buildings.

The Sherman Center is a welcome addition to Worcester, one of the first communities designed as a green community under the state’s Green Communities Designation and Grant Program.

“We are excited to see UMass push the envelope, and it sends a message about the long-term future of the city,” said Timothy J. McGourthy, the city’s chief development officer. “Every new green building we build cements our position as a green community.”